Land of Pictures 16
Sitemap Picture Commentary Continued PAGE 16 : Awesome and Stupendous Pictures (very best part of this wiki) Various Computer related projects which McClendon and his Team worked on. It was hard to just get a few K of memory in those early days for the computers. See - THIS is something called a 'Blueprint', which is used to record complex and exacting details for some project. Its what you SHOULD have seen instead of those ridiculous chalkboards in Infinite BS (and there WERE employed in the previous BS1/BS2 games). Honestly, I don't think those game designers even KNOW what a chalkboard is any more, the way they were laughably used. Little Sign on Andrew Ryan's office desk. Im sure I'll come up with something strange to caption this with (invention for quickly making those huge banners - with an Art Deco type font....) "Things are Bigger and Better in Rapture !!!" Ryan Industries Mono Cycle. Maneuverable. Just the thing for traversing the Suburbia tunnels in the newest section of Rapture. This might have been found in multiverse fantasy magic BaSx Rapture, but WOULD NOT be in BS1/BS2 Rapture. Obviously the timelines were screwed up, which in the logical system causes that parallel universe never to have existed at all (That's how you solve the Grand Father Paradox). Real Zeppelin construction. Special extra light-weight metals, thin girders and lots of guy wires. ((No doubt Fink just cooked up the new metal alloys in his kitchen one afternoon ... Yeah that makes sense to explain it, doesn't it ??)) It really damages the story when clueless developers attempt to explain their Fantasy world. Note how this is well supported. A REAL Gatling Gun weighs something like 200 pounds (you're not going to balance it in only one hand and then turn a crank with the other). The Motorized Patriots being overbalanced by that mass of metal just looked stupid. If McClendon had been in Columbia then you might have seen an AutomaticGent, which would render the bothersome Lower Classes/Serfs largely redundant (resulting in their being disposed of, and allowing Columbia to peacefully sail off into its future.) Jack did look pretty dumb when he had only found the helmet section of his Big Daddy disguise. Ryan's Surface Organization started all kinds of strange rumors to try to camouflage Rapture's existence. Another at least plausible mechanism, versus the magic Skylines of Columbia. Seriously, if they had to have a fricken chainsaw weapon, THEN JUST HAVE A FRICKEN CHAINSAW... Seeing all the concept art, it is apparent that Columbia could have been done MUCH MUCH better. This whole facade looks to be something made for back when they gave tours of "The Thinker" (the sign, the big blue spark stuff, etc...). Real computers are pretty dull and boring to look at. Looks like it should shout "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.!!!" Explaining the Canon-breaking Infinit-ized Rapture (BaSx), it was fully plausible that 'Elizabeth' was one of Cohens little circle that he dosed with his famous "ADAM Cocktails", resulting in insanity (Cohen intentionally doing it as 'Performance Art'), and the resulting delusions that the game represents. This here might also be the latest Rapture fad of injecting Bioluminescent dyes into peoples eyes to make them all weirdly glowey. "Just hold still while I stick this long needle into your eyeball ... Oh don't be such a baby !!!" Some developments in Rapture were simply "Because We Could" (especially if certain rich people tried to outdo each other by possessing such things and thus funding their being made). Sander Cohen probably would have his custom-made with a bit more aesthetically pleasing form. Construction using prefabricated building sections (made near the ocean surface and then floated into position). This method would have been much easier (and cheaper) than manual construction down at 600 feet, requiring clumsy Hard Suits for divers and complications of alot more Remote Control work. Cleaned up poster. Complex technology, but more plausible if the unit transmitted its multi-sensor data BACK to some central processing site (computers and such to diagnose the data patterns, reference databases, and then respond with the analysis and clues about the subject being 'researched'). May have started as a Medical Tool, but then found uses by Ryan Security in evaluating the growing Splicer problem in Rapture. Compact TV in Rapture. Basic Wood (expensive in Rapture ??) Improvements in electronics made for new consumer goods. Looks like a micro-ATX computer 'mod'. Seems to be the inspiration for the Minervas Den decorative theme Early Computer (40's) which has multitudes of vacuum tubes. "The Thinker" could NOT EVER be made from technology THIS primitive. That required some great technological jump like Bio-Electronics (an offshoot of the ADAM technologies). An early radio (manufactured 1926). Dig those wires with no insulators. I think it was plausible that in most of the parallel universes where Fink stole technology from 'The Future', and where he tried to make it work, he managed to kill himself quite quickly. In that 1893-1912 period, many people still thought that 'electricity' would leak from the wall sockets, OR that you had to build power lines in straight lines or the 'electricity' would JUMP off the wires at curves. Maybe if we had seen a whole lot of famous geniuses stolen from history, chained down in Columbia's dark dungeon depths, they MIGHT have had a tiny chance of doing some of the things the game writers present so easily done. Kodak Brownie Camera (you'd get it for $1, with 'free' film, but have to pay for the film processing.) Another opportunity lost - Booker (Player) taking pictures for 'The Authorities' (US Government or whatever) as a side 'Achievement' in the game. Someone's Art Deco Drink Cabinet --- nice work (probably was common in Prohibition Era America in upscale homes). Recording Cylinders (made of wax). This would have been more proper for the Vox-0-Phone objects in Infinite BS (a more compact shaped device instead of that monstrosity playing the 78 record). Little Johnny's Lunch Pail with Genetic Lock ? Boobytrapped to prevent someone pilfering the goodies. Looks a bit like Ryan knew more than just that something was up ... Ryan would have every opportunity to monitor the communications Atlas made to Jack. With all the Accu-Vox evidence laying about, he also easily could have had the details of Fontaine's plan being under way. So plenty of time to grab some Animatronics from Ryan Amusements to fool ADAM-addled Jack (and Fontaine with his limited access to the event) into thinking they had killed Ryan. After that, Fontaine gives himself a way, and Ryan's army of Splicers/Flybots would be heading to Point Prometheus to 'fix' Fontaine/Atlas if Jack didn't succeed. Jack is out cold when Ryan Security finishes Atlas/Fontaine off. Hard for the master self-made parasite to 'regenerate' when he's chopped into fishfood, burnt to ashes and flushed into the ocean. Jack (who really is just 4 years old) would get the best care in being rehabilitated. You wouldn't find this out til the very end ... Now THAT would have been a plot twist (And not so anti-climactic the way the second half of the BS1 game turned out). At what point did having a flying monster patrolling the city begin to dawn on many of Columbia's citizens that they weren't really in anything American any more??? And the thing also being more something which looked to belong in Hell rather than Eden or Heaven ????? Further, realizing that Columbia then probably was NOT someplace they really wanted to be. The Bible repeatedly mentions False Prophets, and more and more this might have been their realization about Comstock. That should have been the real story instead of all the faux science quantum mumbo-jumbo and lipservice 'evil' social issues. Having this Failtopia be populated with creepy Stepford Wive's-like citizens again would have been better than somehow trying to imply the setting as being 'typical' Americanism or implying it be anything Christian. But then as so many people point out when you mention this : that "Its Only a Game". My reply to that is "Yes, ONLY and pretty mediocre Fantasy at that in both story and gameplay? --- and that "Its not the 'topia' that failed, but this cockamamie circle-botch pretending to be 'historic'." Location of Rapture. Seafloor Depth looks to be 1000-1500 meters (~3000-4500 feet). So Rapture to not be squashed under such depths would have to be alot less (like 600 feet which was technically feasible in its era). Thus having it sit on a undersea mountain/volcano that rises quite a bit from the seafloor. Finks initial line of Vigors weren't a success. Suchong may have stolen some like these and sold them to Sander Cohen. Train Schedules - Note "Fontaine Court" - probably along the line back in the opposite direction that we travel in BS2 (its not strange that the map is really only a subset of the big Rapture-wide system, and that they only showed relevant parts to the game). Ahead of its time. Still a bit of a 'brick'. Fink's Espresso Machine - best coffee in Columbia. Too bad that after US government was hunting 'The Pirate City', the coffee beans ran out and they were forced to use rat turds. Smugglers Hideout Tunnels years later ?? (also there likely were more than one 'hideouts') *OR* is this the lower trog-serf level in Columbia, with the 'evil' oozing down from above ?? Another real world interior (a 1900 bank here), Note how the space in these pictures make sense. Here is a REAL restaurant from New York City. A reasonably fancy one, but notice how filled up it is, without a blimp hangar high ceiling and aisle spacing you could run 18 wheelers through. Gianourmous spaces don't make up for detail in games. For FANTASY Columbia - who cares. But did they have to contaminate our Rapture with the same ? Space costs money and you dont waste it. Where the money came (or could come) from for some overbloated blimp hangers of a store/bank/factory/etc... Unless the magic quantumz changes how Profit and Expenses work as per 1900 America, its really hard to explain what we are shown in the game(s) -- for the ordinary environments discounting the bizarro-land SteamPunkish gianourmities. For Fantasy this is fine, but the game makers pretended it somehow related to reality. (Dorothy has to see the Wizard, and here's the Emerald City. Click your heals three times to get back to Reality ...)